Awful but interesting. What makes it AWFUL is 1. The script. The plot positively creaks as the old unbelievable romantic melodrama unfurls. What makes it worse is 2. The acting. I though Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond came out of it best. Mannered and wooden through their performances might be, by comparison with the surrounding "talent", Miss MacD's mechanical vivacity and Mr Raymond's comparative animation (we have seen him much more wooden than here) are almost believable.
It is Brian Aherne and Ian Hunter who are utterly woeful, though part of their lack of conviction is due to their make-up. It is hard to decide which is more ridiculous, Mr Hunter's old man make-up or his young man get-up. I finally decided on the old man make-up as that infests the screen for a much longer period of time. Mr Aherne's white-streaks-in-his-hair and powdered face is no less inept.
As for the special effects in which the ghostly apparition of a sweetly smiling Miss MacD appears, the less said about these laughable endeavors the better. Not that the direction and other technical credits, command a great deal of respect, especially the sound recording which makes Miss MacD's songs sound as if they're being played on ancient phonograph records.
On the other hand, we have the direction with its long takes and its sometimes smooth as silk film editing, and the cinematography with its delicate pastel tones and its peculiar shadowy and misty lighting. Quite unlike the usual M-G-M film that insists on flooding the screen with light and bright colors, this one has a dark and somber mood and many scenes are photographed in one predominant tone like brown or green, so that when Miss MacD wears her white wedding gown, our eyes are riveted on her.
Also making this movie look unlike an M-G-M film, are some of the sets. The interiors of Jeremy Wayne's deserted castle have a brooding, Gothic menace and an ambiance most untypical of M-G-M. Even the scenes in Aherne's house, his study with its shadowy rows of brown-bound books or his garden which is suffused with a deep green from its artificial willow trees, would lead the casual viewer to think he had strayed into a Paramount or Fox feature.
Alas, even by the standards of romantic melodrama, the film is too long. One can't imagine what the screenwriters did, as they seem to have just taken over the stage play wholus bolus and interpolated a large number of songs. (It's a pity that these are so poorly recorded as they would have lightened what is otherwise rather heavy going).
Borzage is a great sentimentalist and this subject would seem to be right up his alley. But although he might be able to stomach the acting and even the script, he is ultimately defeated by technical considerations that appear to be outside his control, like the laughably inept make-up which would set even the most indulgent audience at an amateur theatrical into derisive laughter.
It is Brian Aherne and Ian Hunter who are utterly woeful, though part of their lack of conviction is due to their make-up. It is hard to decide which is more ridiculous, Mr Hunter's old man make-up or his young man get-up. I finally decided on the old man make-up as that infests the screen for a much longer period of time. Mr Aherne's white-streaks-in-his-hair and powdered face is no less inept.
As for the special effects in which the ghostly apparition of a sweetly smiling Miss MacD appears, the less said about these laughable endeavors the better. Not that the direction and other technical credits, command a great deal of respect, especially the sound recording which makes Miss MacD's songs sound as if they're being played on ancient phonograph records.
On the other hand, we have the direction with its long takes and its sometimes smooth as silk film editing, and the cinematography with its delicate pastel tones and its peculiar shadowy and misty lighting. Quite unlike the usual M-G-M film that insists on flooding the screen with light and bright colors, this one has a dark and somber mood and many scenes are photographed in one predominant tone like brown or green, so that when Miss MacD wears her white wedding gown, our eyes are riveted on her.
Also making this movie look unlike an M-G-M film, are some of the sets. The interiors of Jeremy Wayne's deserted castle have a brooding, Gothic menace and an ambiance most untypical of M-G-M. Even the scenes in Aherne's house, his study with its shadowy rows of brown-bound books or his garden which is suffused with a deep green from its artificial willow trees, would lead the casual viewer to think he had strayed into a Paramount or Fox feature.
Alas, even by the standards of romantic melodrama, the film is too long. One can't imagine what the screenwriters did, as they seem to have just taken over the stage play wholus bolus and interpolated a large number of songs. (It's a pity that these are so poorly recorded as they would have lightened what is otherwise rather heavy going).
Borzage is a great sentimentalist and this subject would seem to be right up his alley. But although he might be able to stomach the acting and even the script, he is ultimately defeated by technical considerations that appear to be outside his control, like the laughably inept make-up which would set even the most indulgent audience at an amateur theatrical into derisive laughter.